false spoken charges that do damage to another's reputation, or the crime of uttering utterance of such charges: compare libel1
a false defamatory oral statement
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor — H L Mencken
slanderous /-rəs/ adj
slanderously /-rəsli/ adv
[Middle English sclaundre, slaundre, via Old French from late Latin scandalum: see scandal]